In the quarter ended June 25, Qualcomm
QCOM, -0.95%
said it earned $643 million, or 37 cents a share, compared with $560 million, or 33 cents, a year ago. Revenue climbed 44% to $1.95 billion from $1.36 billion.

Excluding onetime items and the company's investments, Qualcomm said it earned $726 million, or 42 cents a share, up from $465 million, or 28 cents a share, a year ago.

Wall Street had been expecting a profit of 42 cents a share on revenue of $1.95 billion, according to the average of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, Qualcomm offered a cautious outlook, predicting it would earn 39 cents to 41 cents a share from operations on revenue of $1.88 billion to $1.98 billion. Wall Street was expecting the company to earn 42 cents a share on revenue of $1.99 billion.

The forecast briefly sent Qualcomm stock sharply lower in after-hours trading, but shares had almost fully recovered before U.S. markets opened on Thursday.

Qualcomm has a history of raising its forecasts, a trend repeated twice in the third quarter. The company has been on a tear lately as more consumers around the world buy phones based on its patented wireless transmission standard known as CDMA, or code division multiple access.

Qualcomm derives licensing revenue on each phone sale and it also sells most of the computer chips that power handsets based on CDMA technology. CDMA and its variants are used by a number of large carriers in Asia and the U.S., including Verizon Wireless
VZ, -0.78%
and Sprint Nextel Corp.
S, +0.90%

Sales of Qualcomm's chips have been soaring as wireless operators upgrade their networks for high-speed Internet access and market new phones to customers. At the same time, demand for mobile devices has been rising in developing countries such as China and India. See more technology coverage.

Qualcomm Chief Executive Paul E. Jacobs has said technological advances in wireless networks would result in data replacing voice-calling as the predominant form of mobile traffic. The transition is creating new revenue opportunities for phone companies as well as vendors such as Qualcomm that supply them.

Overshadowing its recent gains are concerns about whether the company will reach a crucial license-renewal deal with Nokia Corp., which is both a key competitor and a major seller of handsets that use some of Qualcomm's technology.

On Wednesday, shares of Qualcomm fell 1.8% to $36.73 ahead of the earnings report.

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